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ABSTRACT: The proportion of “unpaid work per day is far higher for women than men globally, while in
case of India on average 66 per cent of women's work is unpaid,” says the WEF. This paper aims to examine
the effects of unpaid care work on women and other emerging themes like how it limits the social and
economic empowerment of women and how it’s exclusively a female domain, with a special reference to the
Indian context. Policy interventions are suggested to negate the undesirable impacts of the unpaid domestic
care work on women.
I. INTRODUCTION
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, recently, in a video message said that, “across every
sphere, from health to the economy, security to social protection, the impacts of COVID-19 are
exacerbated for women and girls simply by virtue of their sex” and also warned the world about
the devastating social and economic consequences of the pandemic on girls and women
particularly. He also said, millions of women's jobs have been lost at the same time that their
unpaid work has “increased exponentially” as a result of school closures and children being at
home, and the increased needs of older people.1
It’s not just the pandemic, the responsibility for
unpaid care work worldwide falls disproportionately on women and girls, leaving them less time
for education, leisure, political participation, paid work, and other economic activities. Much of
this work is devoted to caring for household members and doing domestic chores. Care work
takes up a significant amount of time in most countries, especially where infrastructure is poor
and publicly provided services are limited or absent (Samman et al., 2016), and India falls in this
ambit.
Unpaid care and domestic work refers to all non-market, unpaid activities carried out in
households – including both direct care of persons, such as children or elderly, and indirect care,
such as cooking, cleaning or fetching water. These tasks vary in physical effort and time- intensity, depending on location, socio-economic status, as well as age, marital status and
number of children(Gaëlle Ferrant and Annelise Thim, 2019). Both paid and unpaid care and
domestic work are critical for the well-being of individuals and society as a whole. While certain
tasks may be more enjoyable than others, like spending quality time with your children or
cooking dinner, they all contribute to a functioning and healthy society. However, women’s
disproportionate share has a direct negative impact on their ability to participate in the paid
economy leading to gender gaps in employment outcomes, wages and pensions: the ILO (2018)2
estimates that 606 million women, or 41% of those currently inactive, are outside the labour
market because of their unpaid care responsibilities.
Taking care of one’s own household and family members’ needs may be labour of love but it is
also labour of sorrow and drudgery. Unpaid care work, in particular, though embedded in
feelings of obligation and commitment to others’ well-being, is also rooted in patriarchal
structures that interact with the rest of the economy in ways that need to gain more visibility. The
male-breadwinner female-caregiver polar representation perpetuates a “gendering” ideology that
distorts and limits human potential and narrows the range of experiences of “being” and “doing”
EFFECTS OF UNPAID CARE WORK ON WOMEN: A STUDY
1Dr.K.MADHAVI
1Assistant professor, Maharani women’s Arts, Commerce and Management College, Bengaluru, Karnataka,
India
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for men and women. If we are to make further progress towards gender equality, we have to
address the fact that it is neither “normal” nor “natural” for women to be performing most of the
unpaid labour(Antonopoulos, 2011). In the below sections, the existing literature on the effects
of this unpaid care work on women is dealt in detail.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW AND EMERGING THEMES
1. Gender inequalities in unpaid care work
There is not a single country in the world where men and women do an equal amount of care- work. The day-to-day lives of women around the world share one important characteristic:
unpaid care work is seen as a female responsibility. Estimates show that globally, women do 2.5
times more care-work than men. In countries where the care burden is most unequal, this
amounts to women spending 10 or more weeks per year on unpaid care compared to men. Even
in Sweden, where the distribution of care is most equal, the gap amounts to 1.7 weeks per year.3
While men do spend more hours in paid work, as women’s labour force participation increased
(dramatically in some settings) research shows that in some countries, women’s total time spent
in both paid and unpaid work exceeds men’s.(Levtov, 2016)
Women typically spend disproportionately more time on unpaid care work than men. On account
of gendered social norms that view unpaid care work as a female prerogative, women across
different regions, socio-economic classes and cultures spend an important part of their day on
meeting the expectations of their domestic and reproductive roles. This is in addition to their paid
activities, thus creating the “double burden” of work for women(Razavi, 2007). The 1995
Human Development Report4
noted that women accounted for more than half of the total burden
of work i.e., work time spent either in market-based economic activities, in the subsistence
sector, or in unpaid household or community activities—53 percent in developing countries and
51 percent in developed countries.
Gendered social norms also influence care responsibilities, typically prescribing that women and
girls spend relatively more time on care work. Women and girls are often perceived as being
‘naturally’ more suited to care work and more ‘altruistic’ and ‘loving’ than men and boys
(Chopra & Sweetman, 2014). Social norms and bargaining processes are closely related, in that
social norms might make people accept a status quo that is not necessarily beneficial to them
(Nussbaum, 2000). For example, women or girls might undervalue their own well-being or their
contribution to the household, which can negatively affect their negotiating power(Sen, 1987).
Research demonstrates that some women consider the division of labour ‘fair’ even if they work
more than men(Khoo et al., 2009) .Furthermore, social norms can affect women’s and girls’
bargaining power by weakening their ‘outside options’ or prescribing more ‘quiet’ and ‘covert’
behaviour to females(Stratton & Datta Gupta, 2008). Certain normative roles might be so
strongly embedded in people’s lives that they become ‘normal’ and no longer subject to
bargaining. It follows that women’s bargaining power in household decisions is also shaped by
what subjects are considered suitable for bargaining. For example, in some contexts women may
not consider it possible to bargain about whether or not to marry or to plan and space children,
however much agency they have in their livelihoods and in public participation.
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These socially prescribed and entrenched gender roles that denote women and girls as care
providers can undermine their rights, limit their opportunities, capabilities and choices, and so
impede their empowerment. The large amounts of time spent by women and girls on unpaid care
means that their participation in civil, economic and social spheres, and in public life is
restricted. The negative implications of the lack of leisure time reduce women and girls’
wellbeing (Crow & McPike, 2009), while the drudgery associated with care may lead to adverse
health outcomes. Women in the paid labour market may also not be able to adequately substitute
for their care responsibilities, and therefore the care and human development outcomes of those
being cared for may also suffer.
2. Unpaid caregiving limits the empowerment of women
To fully understand the women’s economic empowerment, and interventions to reduce gender- based constraints, it is also critical to analyse the “multi-dimensionality”5
of these constraints.
These can exist in three spheres.(Benería et al., 2012)
First, women’s position in the household is impacted by a myriad of factors. These may include,
varying in different contexts, and often over-lapping: rights to property inheritance and divorce;
access to family planning and child care; social and cultural norms related to childcare and paid
and unpaid care work; social and cultural norms related to work; value placed on girls’
education; intra-household dynamics and bargaining power; and burdens of unpaid productive or
care work.
Second, in the wider society and economy, women’s work may be constrained by discriminatory
legal and regulatory barriers6
, limited access to financial and physical assets and market
information, fewer social networks and business connections, limited access to education and
skills development, and weaker bargaining power in labour markets. Along with formalized
gender discrimination, attitudes and behaviour on the part of actors in the public arena can
further curtail women’s capacity to take advantage of economic opportunities. Research shows,
for example, that employers can express preferences for male workers on the grounds that
women were seen to have a weaker attachment to the labour market, with higher rates of
absenteeism and turnover, or preferences for women (particularly in highly competitive, labour- intensive export sectors) because they made less trouble, or because they could be paid less on
the grounds that they were secondary earners or merely ‘working for lipstick’(Benería et al.,
2012).
Third, preferences and individual choice can be influenced by psychological attributes, such as
altruism, reciprocity and flexibility. Attitudes to competition, risk taking and aversion,
motivation, etc., may vary between men and women (as well as across groups of women),
though the literature provides different views on whether these differences are caused by choice
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or by gender-related norms and constraints, and whether it is possible to disentangle the two.7
(Croson & Gneezy, 2009; Eckstein & Lifshitz, 2011; Field et al., 2010; Rahim, n.d.)
These three situations basically undermine the conditions needed for an individual to achieve
empowerment, especially in economic terms. The above given evidence shows that household
caregivers spend fewer hours in the labour market than non-caregivers, even when their
caregiving responsibilities are light, which drastically slows down their journey to attain
empowerment esp., economic.
3. A missed opportunity for men and boys
Unequal responsibility for unpaid care work is both a missed opportunity for men and boys and a
major obstacle on the path to achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls.
Easing the load can help expand women’s choices, improve their quality of life and that of their
families, and unlock the benefits of gender equality as a driver of economic growth and
prosperity. Also, there is a positive correlation between men and unpaid care work. When men
shoulder their fair share of unpaid care work, they won’t miss out on positive and life-affirming
experiences, such as the lifelong bonds that can come from spending time with children as they
grow. Taking on unpaid care work can also contribute to a man’s sense of self-worth and work- life balance, and to more fulfilling relationships with a partner and other family members(Quick,
2008).
(Fursman & Callister, 2009) researched the biological aspect of this and established that the need
for women to manage pregnancy, recover from childbirth and establish breastfeeding means that
men often begin parenthood in a secondary role. Their research indicates that the impact of
biology in limiting men’s care for their new-born children may establish a gendered pattern of
care that continues after biological imperatives have receded and thus may impact on men’s
caring for children throughout their dependent years. The arrival of the first child often leads to a
more traditional sharing of tasks in the household, with the gendered division of labour following
birth often resulting in women’s continued greater responsibility for childcare and men’s lesser
participation in care across the life course. These differences also flow through to variations in
labour force participation by gender. They also go on to explain how gendered government
policies can act as a barrier to men’s greater participation in care. For example, parental leave
policies that are contingent on mothers meeting eligibility criteria, or rely on mothers’
willingness to transfer leave to their partners, mean that some fathers are unable to access leave
to care for children. The Nordic countries stand out for their generosity in this policy area. Cross- national examinations of their policies and those of other European countries have showed a
positive correlation between the ‘father-friendliness’ of leave provisions and the amount of time
fathers spend caring for their children.
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4. Demographic distribution of unpaid care work and intersectionality
‘The situation of women and men is not equal, and this is evident also in older age... It is obvious
that older women are more disadvantaged than older men, because of inequalities throughout
their lives.’ (Civil society organisation representative, Addis Ababa)
New UN data on people aged 60 and older suggest that independent living arrangements are
becoming more common. Nonetheless, about two-thirds of older people in low- and middle- income countries live with their children where they often have substantial caring
responsibilities. They also carry out unpaid care work which contributes to national economies,
subsidises national budgets through supporting children and the sick, and maintains the well- being of the labour force (Budlender, 2010). Yet older people are often perceived as
‘unproductive’ and ‘economically dependent’ and their work is often perceived as ‘helping out’
or ‘passing time’ (Budlender, 2010).
A ‘skip-generation household’ is defined as a household that is headed by an older person with
one or more children where the children’s parents have died or are absent (Lackey et al., 2011).
Worldwide, these have grown in number owing to HIV and AIDS and increased labour
migration by parents who leave children behind. Older people heading skip-generation
households tend to have higher workloads than those living with their children or independently.
In addition, research has found that older people living in skip-generation households face
particular challenges, including grief at having lost a child, health concerns, and poverty and
stress related to providing for grandchildren (Lackey et al., 2011). However, whether residing in
small households or multi-generational households (in which still the majority of people in low- and middle-income countries), women continue to carry out the majority of domestic work. The
burden of this work inside the household also influences their ability to work outside the
household, as does the configuration of the household, i.e. women living in households with
daughters or daughters-in-law can share the domestic work burden with them and are therefore
potentially freer to take on other roles (Samuels et al., 2018).
A report by the UN in 2010 stated that, “Poverty, and corresponding economic necessity, is a
key driver of poor women’s engagement in paid work globally, and they are more likely to
engage in paid work in their old age to generate cash for themselves and their families than
better-off women. In low- and middle- income countries, only a small minority of older people
have access to a pension, leading them to continue to work to meet their daily needs. Moreover,
older women are more likely than men to be poor, as they usually accumulate less wealth
throughout their lives and are often prevented from owning land or other assets.” This also
constitutes the “double burden” of work, as discussed in the previous sections.
5. Unpaid domestic work in India and necessary Policy interventions
In India, women’s labour force participation rate is very low and has seen a declining trend over
the last decade probably because majority of them are moving into the domain of ‘domestic
duties’ (Bailey et al., 2017). A mere 22 percent of women are engaged in workforce, and out of
them, 70 percent are associated with the farm activities that are informal in nature with little or
no economic remuneration or social recognition and almost zero access to social protection
(Deshingkar, 2009). Most of women’s unpaid work is characterized as informal, invisible, and
unrecognized in the economy. Further, the marginalization of women in workforce is intensified
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